Supported projects

BEIRUT - Jado is a trans woman from Beirut. A prominent figure and a motherly presence in the local LGBTQIA+ community, she is an inspiration to many. Like many others, she has to fight every day just to be herself and survive.

GULU - Since 2005, the ‘LRA’ has been expelled from Uganda. Despite an international arrest warrant, Joseph Kony is still a fugitive. President Musevini is still in power after 38 years. The majority of Uganda's population lives in poverty with no prospect of improvement. They are surviving but hungry for hope.

BRUSSELS - Bias in recruitment and unreliable selection methods remain a persistent problem that affects many job seekers, as journalist Wim Swinnen demonstrates. For Eos and Psyche&Brein, he delved into the way personnel selection is carried out in companies and organisations.

MATAM - As a nine-year-old girl born with exceptional flexibility, Fanta took her first steps in the Amoukanama circus group, which consisted of boys. Even then, Fanta dreamed of a professional career as an acrobat. However, her family did not approve. Five years later, Fanta still cherishes the same dream and faces the same practical family objections.

BEIROET / JERUSALEM / DAMASCUS - The ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011 had huge consequences: dictators fell, wars followed, the refugee crisis came. Now the Middle East is in a new maelstrom, from Gaza and Lebanon to Syria. Do younger generations see hope alongside misery?

GHENT - Poverty is not just a matter of not having enough money. Poverty affects every aspect of your life. By highlighting people's problems from different points of view, Michelle Ginée in Poor in Rich Flanders goes in search of answers.

AMSTERDAM / BRUSSELS - Gay & Grey is a documentary series by director Julia M. Free in a co-production with VRT Canvas and DeMensen. The series follows the daily lives of senior lesbian couples, aged 70 and above, whose relationships have stood the test of time.

BRUSSELS - One in five Belgian women decides to terminate her pregnancy. When terminating a pregnancy is seen as an act of care, new conversations can begin. Care for yourself, care for a partner or care for future choices. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Latinos voting for Trump in the US: they exist and there are far more of them than you might think. Alex Cordova travels to the United States in the run-up to the presidential election. He examines the role of the church, politics and identity in the context of the 4 November election.

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa, the queer paradise, or at least that is what is said. We know the images of the annual Pride in Johannesburg. As such, South Africa is the only country on the entire African continent in which LGBTQIA+ persons have equal rights, and can also marry. Only: the contrast between the constitution and daily reality is stark.

BRUSSELS - First and foremost, Under the Surface is a portrait of Anneke, a young woman of 33 with ASD who wants to live an independent life and escapes into a fantasy world.

ROME - NGOs carrying out rescue operations in the Mediterranean have been at odds with the Italian government for years. SOS MEDITERRANNEE claims to perform its duty as mandated by international maritime law. Italy fights back with administrative sanctions.

AFRICA - While hatred and fear is sown in Europe about " floating negroes" and "repopulation," the African side of the immigration debate remains underexposed.

Pelvic pain is an umbrella term for pain in the tailbone, hips, buttock region, joints around the sacrum and pubic bone, but also embraces pain and discomfort in the vagina, vulva, perineum, uterus, ovaries, bladder, bowels and pelvic floor muscles.

ST JOHN'S - Barbuda is paradise on earth: a small Caribbean island with beautiful beaches and clear waters full of fish and lobster. Worth noting: on Barbuda, land is not for sale. There is a system of communal land ownership. But cracks are appearing in that, now that property developers have their eye on the island.

BRUSSELS - Journalist and writer Catherine Vuylsteke chronicled the life stories of Mar Maremoto, Ann Telnaes, Rachita Taneja, Doaa El-Adl, Victoria Lomasko and Amany Al-Ali, six women cartoonists from Mexico, the U.S., India, Egypt, Russia and Syria to whom the documentary series Draw for Change, recently awarded at Cannes, is dedicated.

NINOVE - "Marginal triangle," "wing-west for the extreme right," "cultural breakdown strip against the language border. For those who don't live there, it's easy to brush off the Dender region. But how do the residents themselves actually see it?

UNITED STATES - Journalist Daan Ballegeer explores in the United States, the birthplace of the automobile, how that means of transportation has influenced our lives.

BRUSSELS - These women weren’t leading  the same battles, walking in the same streets or speaking in the same forums. Yet they were all victims of the same crime:  political feminicide.

BRUSSELS - Suddenly Eva finds herself face to face with a portrait of her Congolese great-grandfather François. Retrieved from the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren. In the unfamiliar portrait, Eva recognises traits of herself.

TEHERAN - The Islamic Republic regime in Iran has been oppressing its people for more than 40 years. In response to this repression and suffocation, the popular uprising of ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ is a powerful ‘no’.

BRUSSELS - In March 1922, Belgian philologist Théophile Simar published a study entitled Étude critique sur la formation de la doctrine des races au XVIIIe siècle et son expansion au XIXe siècle. In it, the term ‘racism’ is used in a scientific context for the first time. A hundred years later, the term falls dozens of times every day in thousands of places. Racism seems to be an ineradicable social problem.

BRUSSELS - On the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March, three generations of women spend three days together. Twentysomething Cosima Bas and her mother Anna Luyten dig into the life wisdom of the oldest. This is Chantal De Smet (76), a striking figure of the second feminist wave in Belgium. VRT journalist Hilde De Windt photographs and films.

In Echo, named after the poem 'Echoes' by Audre Lorde, Neske Beks mercilessly puts her finger on the sore spot. Not only is the white view still dominant in our society, but Black women are doubly disadvantaged: they are not white and they are not men.

BRUSSELS - Last summer, a fire breather suddenly appeared in Brussels. Photographer Kristof Vadino became intrigued by the mysterious entertainer and started following the man.

LEUVEN - One consequence of Leuven being an expensive city to live in is that many people are forced to move elsewhere. The City Monitor showed in 2017 that 15 percent of residents had plans to do so. No less than 56 percent cited financial reasons for this.

ALBANIA - Over the past 30 years, Albania has evolved at breakneck speed from an extreme communist dictatorship to an unbridled neoliberal democracy. This makes the country an interesting laboratory for contemporary social developments, such as migration, identity construction or gender and the social role of women. There is a lot to be said about this, because Albanian society has always been very patriarchal. Equality between men and women is hardly an issue.

LILONGWE - Malawi is one of the countries hardest hit by climate change. Major floods and extreme drought mean that the harvest fails year after year. Girls are then easy prey for human traffickers.

AUSTIN - Louise Van Assche is a documentary filmmaker who lives and works in Austin, Texas. She was born and raised in Belgium and has Congolese roots. A year ago she moved to Austin, the capital of Texas. There she ended up in the middle of the Black Lives Matter protests. It touched her personally and she decided to take to the streets to make a report.

BRUSSELS - This is the first article in a series on homelessness focusing on the Belgian capital city, where homelessness has more than doubled in ten years.